Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 09:55:14 -0500
From: carl_mason@comcast.net
Subject: JOSEF'S FORGE - 2
Copyright 2006 by Carl Mason with Ed Collins
All rights reserved. Other than downloading one copy for strictly personal
enjoyment, no part of this story may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, except for reviews, without
the written permission of the authors. However based on real events and
places, "Josef's Forge" is strictly fictional. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. As
in real life, however, the sexual themes unfold gradually.
If you would like to read other Mason-Collins stories, please turn to the
listing at the end of this chapter. Comments on all stories are
appreciated and may be addressed to the authors at carl_mason@comcast.net.
This story contains descriptions of sexual contact between males, both
adults and teenagers. As such, it is homoerotic fiction designed for the
personal enjoyment of legal, hopefully mature, adults. If you are not of
legal age to read such material, if those in power and/or those whom you
trust treat it as illegal, or if it would create unresolvable moral
dilemmas in your life, please leave. Finally, remember that maturity
generally demands that anything other than safe sex is sheer insanity!
CHAPTER 2
(Revisiting Chapter 1)
On a sunny day that Heinz (their resident expert on such matters) swore was
in early April, the boys sat around after their exercise session, swatting
at the mosquitoes that were just beginning to be noticeable. God, they
were big enough to pick up a Volkswagen...maybe even the Field Marshall's
Mercedes...and fly off with it and could they ever bite! Loudspeakers
suddenly blared, announcing that in 15 minutes they would leave for their
permanent camp. As they stood in lines before the camp gate - probably an
hour later - Josef noticed that barely 2000 of the 5000 men who had marched
into the camp in early February were departing. He shook his head in
sorrow. Several hours later, their ranks swollen by another column, they
again stood in line at a temporary dock on the Volga. It appeared that
they would board several barges pushed by a heavy tug that were similar to
those Josef had seen carrying grain on the Spree River in Berlin.
Suddenly, he felt an arm around his shoulders. A low voice growled in his
ear, "You did it, boss. You did it! We're all alive! Every man in the
squad owes you his life." It was the great homophobe, Thomas.
(Continuing Our Story - Upriver )
The barge trip up the Volga - and its great tributary, the Kama, that
drained much of the western Urals region - provided some relief from the
absolute horrors of preceding months. Needless to say, it was in no way a
vacation river cruise, but at least SOME Soviet planning had taken place.
For instance, food - however inadequate - was available. Further, the
young Red Army guards were a welcome relief after the brutal NKVD guards at
the holding camp. The boys could even leave the hold occasionally, go up
on deck, and enjoy the spring air and the scenery. As the terror receded,
albeit temporarily, their strict focus on survival softened.
Josef's men - other than Thomas who, in all fairness, continued to mellow -
began to show rough, teenaged male affection for the youngster who had
brought them through the proverbial Valley of the Shadow of Death. There
was even a bit more. One night, for instance, well after they had bedded
down on the steel floor of the hold, Heinz turned over to face Josef who
had been tossing and turning next to him. Slowly, very tentatively, the
young lad rubbed his roughly shaven head over his hero's chest. Josef
could see the red hairs in the faint light of a bulb at the far end of the
hold. Josef brought his hand up and softly rubbed the boy's cropped skull.
When Heinz gave a little moan of pleasure, he allowed himself to run his
hand over the youth's thin body...his shoulders, his back, and what little
was left of his rump. Heinz's body quivered as he thrust twice into
Josef's thigh and, with a quiet grunt, came. Josef kissed him softly on
the side of his forehead and hugged him affectionately. Indeed, he might
have gone a bit further had it not been for Gerd's coughing and turning
over in his sleep to face them. For all of that, Josef was conscious of
the fact that his emotions were beginning to unfreeze. Excitement mingled
with fear.
It was only when Josef lay back that he realized that he had also cum. So
they would follow him to Hell and back, would they? God, he loved these
guys...every one. He'd not let them be destroyed by this horror. HE WOULD
NOT! GOD BEING HIS WITNESS, HE WOULD NOT!
Late in the afternoon of another of many days, the convoy tied up for the
night in a cove that lay just off the main channel. The tugboat captain
wanted to enter the Kama in full daylight, for it could be tricky given the
number of barges he was pushing upstream against a heavy current. In
fractured Russian, Josef asked whether they might bathe. The chief guard
wasn't too enthused by the idea, but the barge captain didn't see what the
problem was as long as the groups were small and they were guarded. (As on
any vessel in the world - unless a secret police officer was on board - the
Captain's word was pretty much law.)
In the late afternoon sun, about two dozen boys and men frolicked in the
cold water at one time. When it came their turn, Josef shouted from the
water - again, in his "best" Russian - that the off-duty Red Army guards
should come in. Somewhat to his surprise, the chief guard shrugged his
shoulders and waved them towards the water. Josef felt a stirring that he
hadn't felt for months as he watched the cute young Russian boys strip and
dive in. "God, they're so beautiful!" he thought. "They don't even look
as if they've been in battle yet." Not long before they would have been
called out to give other POWs a chance, one of the guards got a cramp and,
with a loud cry, went under. Thomas, who came from a coastal town up near
the Danish border and had evidently swum competitively in the Hitler Youth,
was able to get him over to the side of the barge where his buddies managed
to lift him aboard. Nothing much was said at the time, but the young guard
came up to Thomas later on, thanked him, and asked if he and his friends
would like some help with their Russian. As he was the first to admit, he
and his buddies weren't teachers, but they would be happy to help as best
they could. The offer was gratefully accepted. Not surprisingly, the boys
enjoyed sharing a couple of bottles of beer even more than the Russian
instruction! When their chief plunked a piece of chocolate down on the
table at which they were sitting, the day was complete - even though the
few nibbles each received raised hell with their insides!
On the way out of the room, one of the guards and Josef made eye contact.
It's amazing how many hidden nooks and crannies there are on any boat!
They finally found an empty storage locker. The kid - very young and as
nervous as a cat - tried his damndest to remain the perfect picture of "The
Soviet Warrior." Imperiously, he ordered Josef to kneel before him and
open his trousers. Josef wasn't complaining! The large handful he
extracted was enticing enough under any circumstances! The boy's dark red
glans was already swollen and dripping precum. A touch of the tongue
here...a little swirl there...a few taps on the frenulum... WOW! He
exploded like one of those damned Soviet Katushka rockets - maybe a whole
BATTERY of them! Josef expected to be returned immediately to the
hold...but no. The boy knelt down in front of him and looked deeply into
his eyes. "Droog [friend]?" he murmured. "Da [yes]," Josef answered
breathlessly. The young German didn't last a second longer than had the
young Russian!
When Josef returned to a darkened hold, Thomas silently moved over to give
him room to burrow down onto the crowded steel deck. When he had situated
himself, Thomas raised up, slugged him on the upper arm, snorted, turned
over, and went to sleep! Snickering and quietly giggling for a good half
hour as he tried his best to get comfortable and relax, Josef's eyes didn't
really close until a new day was dawning.
(Siberska Street)
The trip up the wide Kama was a delight. ("Oh, for a different time and
situation!" the boys thought.) Russia's fourth longest river, it drains a
wide area of the western side of Urals before flowing into the Volga south
of the city of Kazan'. Founded in 1723 by Peter the Great, Perm', their
destination, was an important river city surrounded by beautiful pine
forests. It was also a major industrial city - the foremost center of
Soviet artillery production, though it also produced aircraft engines and a
host of other products for the "Great Patriotic War" (as World War II was
known in the Soviet Empire). Finally, it was also one of the Soviet
Union's vital centers of research and development. As their barges passed
the factory district, the German lads could see that the whole area was a
beehive of activity. Indeed, the immense factories - manned by women and
children in the main - were active 24 hours a day during those times.
The port area seemed crowded with boats and ships of every description.
One of the guards told Josef that children from Leningrad had been
evacuated here before the city had been completely blockaded. At the
docks, the barges' human cargo was unloaded and control turned over to NKVD
(Interior Ministry) guards. There was little doubt that they were of a
different ilk than the young Army troops who had accompanied them upriver.
Quickly establishing ironhanded control, they formed them into long columns
and marched the more than 4500 POWs on a broad avenue through the city.
Josef was able to decipher the occasional street sign that, in Cyrillic
letters, read "Siberska" [Siberian] Street." Despite himself, he shivered.
Suffering in the moist warmth to which they were unaccustomed after being
on the river for days, they trudged along towards the traditional eastern
entrance to the city, "The Siberian Gate," as it had been known for
centuries. Occasionally, an old woman...sometimes a young child...would
come out from the lines of spectators and offer them water - though they
were generally shooed away by the guards. Yes, there was a derisive shout
here and there, but, by and large, the people of Perm' seemed to look upon
them with...what was it...pity? Did they know something about where they
were going?
That night they were camped in a damp, open field well outside town that
was surrounded by rather scraggly pines. Their thin soup and small pieces
of khleb [the dark, moist bread mentioned in Chapter 1] were made
available, and small fires allowed. They could not, however, move around
beyond their immediate areas. Four POWs were shot "trying to escape."
(Crossing into Asia)
The low line of dark hills rose immediately before them, blocking their
path. The guards kept them moving, but neither the grade nor the pace was
at all impossible. Slowly, they found themselves climbing through valleys
that were heavily forested - conifers in the main, though there was also
birch, popular, aspen, and willow. In the lower elevations, the soil
looked deep and rich with countless streams and lakes. Small villages that
appeared to be reasonably well off dotted the Urals' western slopes. Josef
noticed that not a man between 17 and 60 was to be seen.
At a lunch breather - a bit of bread and fresh water - one of the older
prisoners told them that the Urals were a true mountain range only at the
northern and southern ends. Caused eons ago by a continent consisting
chiefly of Siberia crashing into a supercontinent that contained most of
the rest of the Earth's landmass, most of the range had eroded into little
more than zones of rocky plateaus - the "Stone Wall," as the Russians
called it - between Europe and Asia. This relatively low, "middle" section
had long been Russia's highway to the East.
Traversing the something less than 200 miles between Perm' and Sverdlovsk
would take nearly seven days on foot rather than a long day by rail - but
the rail line was so crowded with troops and war materiel that it simply
wasn't available. When they stopped for the first night, Josef noticed
that the guards were drinking heavily and warned the boys to lie low. Just
as well... A pretty village girl almost got Thomas killed! Having
followed the column from her village, she managed to approach the
encampment through the woods and catch Thomas's eye as they sat around
after supper. He willingly followed her around back of a granite
outcropping at the edge of the forest. When a guard came around for an
unannounced count, he noticed that Thomas was absent. Josef called out
loudly that the lad had diarrhea and couldn't make it to the shit pit.
Hence, he had headed in back of the nearby ledge. As the guard moved
quickly in that direction, automatic rifle at ready, Thomas appeared,
hurriedly buttoning up his pants. The guard smashed him with the butt of
his rifle and ordered him back to the others.
Thomas was the recipient of more attention from his comrades that evening
than he probably wanted. It got so that he jumped whenever one of them
approached, for it meant a heavy blow to the upper arm, a smirk, and a lewd
comment...or two. Even Josef joined in, receiving a scowl...and, then, a
wide grin...for his troubles!
The girl did tell Thomas that it was almost time for ticks to appear in the
forest, insects whose bites could be serious. From then on, the boys
checked their skin frequently - though the problem did not become
widespread until they reached their final destination deep in the taiga.
"Taiga" is the Russian word for forest and is the largest life zone in the
world, stretching over Eurasia and North America. The taiga is located
near the top of the world, just below the tundra life zone. The taiga
doesn't have as many plant and animal species as the tropical or the
deciduous forest zones to the south, but it does have billions of insects
in the summertime. Birds migrate there every year to nest and feed. The
average temperature is below freezing for six months out of the year. The
winter temperature range is -54 to -1 degrees C (-65 to 30 deg. F). The
temperature in the summer gets as low as -7 deg. C (20 deg. F). The high in
summer can be 21 deg. C (70 deg. F). The summers are mostly warm, rainy and
humid. They are also very short with about 50 to 100 frost-free days. The
total precipitation in a year is 30-85 cm (12-33 in) . The forms the
precipitation comes in are rain, snow and dew. Most of the precipitation in
the taiga falls as rain in the summer. The main seasons in the taiga are
winter and summer. The spring and autumn are so short, you hardly know they
exist. It is either hot and humid or very cold in the taiga.
The heavy drinking continued, and the brutality of the guards increased.
On another night, for instance, one of the guards told a story in fractured
German about survivors from an earlier age - akin to our "Abominable
Snowmen" - that lurked in these forests. Hearing screams during the night,
they awakened to find a horribly mangled prisoner lying not far from the
shit pit. His body looked as if it had been ripped apart by great claws;
his head and genitals were missing. "Could the story be true?" several of
the boys asked, their faces pale, their teeth chattering. "Oh," replied
Josef, "I guess it could, but my money would be on a different kind of
monster that we've seen around." He laid down the law: Everyone did his
business before bedding down for the night. In an absolute emergency, you
woke up a buddy who accompanied you. You took care of it - quickly and
quietly - in the immediate area. "Just cover it up with a little dirt," he
advised.
As was the case with most Germans, the boys had a deep and abiding love for
nature. Had the circumstances been different, they would have thoroughly
enjoyed their mountain adventure. For instance, the area was teeming with
wildlife. During the first three days, for instance, they saw elk, deer,
and a variety of forest birds, including an enormous owl. Heinz swore that
he had spotted a boar and wolves. At one point, the long column ground to
a halt as guards began screaming that they had just seen "Tri Medvedya!"
[three bears]. (Josef smirked to himself.) They wanted to take off
immediately and bag them - but the head guard quickly quashed that idea!
Reaching the low summit, they immediately began the much steeper descent.
The guards were in an increasingly foul mood, pushing the men along,
shooting several POWs who were falling behind. Further, it was suddenly
colder as they passed into Siberia where winds off water had much less
effect on the climate than in Europe. (The Arctic oceans weren't of much
help; the Pacific was simply too far away.) Ahead of them stretched the
great West Siberian plain, one of the largest areas of flat land in the
world, an area containing vast reserves of softwood timber and minerals, an
area whose flat, poorly drained lowlands were dotted with marshes, swamps,
and peat bogs.
The weather was as foul as the guards' tempers. Cold rain poured down
endlessly. It was as if they had reentered earliest spring. There were
even snow showers, and they shivered as they hadn't since March in the
holding camp. Needless to say, they were relieved as they came off the
lower reaches of the Urals and immediately approached a great industrial
city. Its furnaces belching endless clouds of pollutants into the air,
Sverdlovsk [today known as Ekaterinburg, its pre-Bolshevik name] was a
major stop on the Trans-Siberian Railroad that spanned over 5700 miles (and
8 time zones) from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific Coast. It was here
that prison cars would take them deeper into the Siberian wilderness.
(To Be Continued)
DATES OF LAST POSTING IN NIFTY
Archived in Gay/Historical Unless Otherwise Noted
OUT OF THE RUBBLE (32 Chapters): 10-22-04.
CASTLE MARGARETHEN (9 Cs): 12-24-04.
THE PRIEST & THE PAUPER (12 Cs): 3-10-05.
HIGH PLAINS DOCTOR (12 Cs): 4-25-05.
FOR GOD AND COUNTRY (9 Cs): 6-13-05.
HOBO TEEN (12 Cs): 8-23-06.
YOUNG JEREMY TAYLOR (9 Cs): 9-25-06 (posted in Sci-Fi/Fantasy).
STREETS OF NEW YORK (10 Cs): 12-06-06.
JOSEF'S FORGE (10 Cs): Posting.